Gaspara Stampa: Selected Poems

This first sizable bilingual selection of work by Stampa (1532-1554), introduced by the editors as ``the greatest Italian woman poet ever,'' unveils the writer's Petrarchan sonnets, in which she inverted gender roles. Casting herself as the traditionally male pursuer of a love object-in this case, nobleman Collaltino di Collalto-Stampa employed the ``pena-penna'' (pain-pen) convention, where the faithless lover serves as muse to the poet. Her canzonieri had been arranged by her own hand in chronological order; here, the editors have preferred a later, standardized, though somewhat arbitrary division of her work into ``Love Poems'' and ``Miscellaneous Poems,'' the former dedicated mainly to Collaltino. Stylistically, Stampa's sonnets are noted for their highly musical quality (as even an untrained reading of the facing Italian reveals), and the translators render from it an unadorned blank verse. What transcends either language-and makes this edition so warranted-is an emotional immediacy expressed in self-effacing wit. (Dec.)